VII. Monarchianism
Questions for Further Study: How did the theology of the East in general differ from that of the West? How do you account for the difference? What bearing did the allegorical interpretation of Scripture have on the theology of the Alexandrian Fathers? Did the Logos doctrine of these Fathers differ from that of the Apologists? If so, how? How does their doctrine of the Trinity compare with that of Tertullian? Do they shed any light on the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son? How do they represent the main sources of sin and its chief remedy? Does Origen have a self-consistent theory of the origin of sin? In what direction did they develop the doctrine of free will? (cf. Scott, The Nicene Theology, p. 212). How do they conceive of the work of Christ? Do the sufferings of Christ form an essential element in their teachings? In what sense do they teach the deification of human nature? How does Origen's theology offer points of contact for Arianism? How does his eschatology compare with that of the Roman Catholic Church? Is Allen justified in considering Greek rather than Latin theology as expressing the Christian faith? What points of similarity may be noted between Greek theology and present day Modernism?
Literature: Fairweather, Origen and Greek Patristic Theology; Scott, The Nicene Theology, pp. 188–194, 212–219, 236–251, 286–289;
Moody, The Mind of the Early Converts, pp. 258–301; Cunningham, Historical Theology I, pp. 146–158; McGiffert, A History of Christian
Thought I, pp. 177–231; Harnack, History of Dogma II, pp. 319–380; Seeberg, History of Doctrines I, pp.
140–161; Loofs, Dogmengeschiedenis, pp. 106–126; Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine I, pp. 274–277, 288–305; II, pp. 3–10, 31–36, 226–237,
395, 396; Otten, Manual of the History of Dogmas I, pp. 190–209; Neander, History of Christian Dogmas, cf. Index; Fisher, History of Christian Doctrine, pp. 94–97, 104–116.
VII. Monarchianism
While the great heresy of the second century was Gnosticism, the outstanding heresy of the third century was Monarchianism. The Logos doctrine of the Apologetes, the Antignostic Fathers, and the Alexandrian Fathers did not give general satisfaction. Apparently many of the common people regarded it with misgivings, since it seemed to impinge on their theological or on their Christological interests. Where the theological interest was uppermost, the doctrine of the Logos as a separate divine Person appeared to endanger the unity of God or monotheism; and where the Christological interest was in the foreground, the idea that the Logos was subordinate to the Father seemed to compromise the deity of Christ. In course of time men of learning took notice of the misgivings of the people and attempted to safeguard, on the one hand the unity of God, and on the other hand the deity of Christ. This gave rise to two types of thought, both of which were called Monarchianism (a name first applied to them by Tertullian), though strictly speaking it could justly be applied only to that type in which the theological interest was uppermost. In spite of its partial impropriety, the name is generally used up to the present time as a designation of both types.
1. DYNAMIC MONARCHIANISM. This is the type of Monarchianism that was mainly interested in maintaining the unity of God, and was entirely in line with the Ebionite heresy of the early Church and with present day Unitarianism. Some find the earliest manifestation of it in the rather obscure sect of the Alogi, but Seeberg questions the correctness of this. In all probability its earliest representative was
Theodotus of Byzantium, who was excommunicated by Victor, the bishop of Rome. After that Artemon, a Syrian by birth, tried to prove the peculiar views of this type of Monarchianism from Scripture and tradition. His arguments were effectively refuted, however, in the publication of an unknown author, entitled the Little Labyrinth. The sect gradually dwindled away, but was revived again through the efforts of the man who became its most noted representative, Paul of Samosata, the bishop of Antioch, who is described as a worldlyminded and imperious person. According to him the Logos was indeed homoousios or consubstantial with the Father, but was not a
distinct Person in the Godhead. He could be identified with God, because He existed in Him just as human reason exists in man. He was merely an impersonal. power, present in all men, but particularly operative in the man Jesus. By penetrating the humanity of Jesus progressively, as it did that of no other man, this divine power gradually deified it. And because the man Jesus was thus deified, He is worthy of divine honour, though He cannot be regarded as God in the strict sense of the word. By this construction of the doctrine of the Logos Paul of Samosata maintained the unity of God as implying oneness of person as well as oneness of nature, the Logos and the Holy Spirit being merely impersonal attributes of the Godhead; and thus became the forerunner of the later Socinians and Unitarians. Like them he was interested in the defense of the unity of God and of the real humanity of Jesus. McGiffert asserts that the latter was his primary interest.
2. MODALISTIC MONARCHIANISM. There was a second form of Monarchianism which was far more influential. It was also interested in maintaining the unity of God, but its primary interest seems to have been Christological, namely, the maintenance of the full divinity of Christ. It was called Modalistic Monarchianism, because it conceived of the three Persons in the Godhead as so many modes in which God manifested Himself; was known as Patripassianism in the West, since it held that the Father Himself had become incarnate in Christ, and therefore also suffered in and with Him; and was designated Sabellianism in the East after the name of its most famous representative. The great difference between it and Dynamic
Monarchianism lay in the fact that it maintained the true divinity of Christ.
Tertullian connects the origin of this sect with a certain Praxeas of whom little is known, while Hyppolytus claims that it originated in the teachings of Noëtus of Smyrna. However this may be, both were evidently instrumental in propagating it. Praxeas was absolutely inimical to personal distinctions in God. Tertullian says of him: "He drove out the Paraclete and crucified the Father." Praxeas, however,
seems to have avoided the assertion that the Father suffered, but Noëtus did not hesitate at this point. To quote the words of Hippolytus: "He said that Christ is Himself the Father, and that the Father Himself was born and suffered and died." According to the same Church Father he even made the bold assertion that the Father by changing the mode of his being literally became His own Son. The statement of Noëtus referred to runs as follows: "When the Father had not yet been born, He was rightly called the Father; but when it pleased Him to submit to birth, having been born, He became the Son, He of Himself and not of another."
The most important representative of this sect was Sabellius. Since only a few fragments of his writings are extant, it is hard to determine in detail just what he taught. It is perfectly clear, however, that he distinguished between the unity of the divine essence and the plurality of its manifestations, which are represented as following one another like the parts of a drama. Sabellius indeed sometimes spoke of three divine persons, but then used the word "person" in the original sense of the word, in which it signifies a role of acting or a mode of manifestation. According to him the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are simply designations of three different phases under which the one divine essence manifests itself. God reveals Himself as Father in creation and in the giving of the law, as Son in the incarnation, and as Holy Spirit in regeneration and sanctification.
Questions for Further Study: What accounts for the rise of Monarchianism? In what countries did it make its appearance? Is it correct to say with McGiffert that Monarchianism was only moderately, if at all, concerned about the unity of God; and that its main interest was Christological? To what other early heresies was dynamic Monarchianism related? Has it any modern counterpart?
What did the two types of Monarchianism have in common? Has Sabellianism any modern counterpart? What Fathers combatted this type of heresy? Was the position of the Alogi in any way related to this heresy? Is Harnack's sympathy with Monarchianism justified?